Twisting The Truth Changes Nothing
by Selene Illusinia
Summary: Skye witnesses a horrifying event that sends her digging for answers in Ward's past. But is she ready for what she might find? Is he? And is she really the first person to go looking for these answers?
1. Chapter 1

It was sharp, the knocking. Sharp enough to rouse Andrew Ward from his semi-drunken stupor. Lifting his head from where it had been sagging against his chest, he scowled and managed to push his way to his feet. His suit was crumpled- he really should have changed when he got home- but he ignored that fact in favor of reaching the door before it could wake his damn kids. He didn't need their whining right now.

Throwing open the door, he was ready to spit in the face of the man in front of him. "Who the hell are you?"

"Fabulous, Cyrus is dead and his son is a drunk," scowled the man on the doorstep. "This is not what he needs at all. You must become sober, boy. For your sake and his."

"My sake is my business," slurred Andrew. "Not your-"

"Actually, it is entirely my business," stated the unknown man before he gestured to his arms.

Dropping his eyes, Andrew blinked rapidly in an attempt to identify the object in the man's arms. It squirmed a little, whatever it was, and after a moment fussing noises began to emit from the bundle. A baby? This man was carrying around a baby? "What's with the kid?"

"You mean your child," stated the man simple. In the blink of an eye, he had swapped Andrew's whiskey glass for the child. It was only the automatic reaction of having two other children that kept Andrew from dropping him. "He's yours now."

"What?!" sputtered Andrew, trying to thrust the child back at this stranger. "No! What? Who the hell are you?"

"Doctor Thaddeus Sims," replied the man crisply. "Your father and I used to work together on...projects. He owed me a favor but, as he is no longer with us, repayment falls to you." Pulling a pile of papers from his suit, the Sims half flung them at Andrew, the papers landing on the child. "I've already had the papers drawn up showing he's yours. He's currently four months old and his name is now Grant Douglas Ward. Take good care of him- he's our most delicate experiment yet."

"And if I refuse?" growled Andrew. "What if I just drop this kid in the nearest orphanage and tell you to go fuck yourself, huh?"

A dark look swept across Sims face, dangerous in every way you could imagine. "Your father owed a very large blood debt to me. This is the payment. If you kill or attempt to remove from your custody in any way this child, I will destroy your life and everything in it, leaving you as little more than a worthless pile of trash. This child is too important for me to risk loosing him in the system. He is the cumulative result of my work. Watch him like a hawk. When the time is right, I will send someone for him." Without another word, Sims turned on his heel and headed back towards the front street. "Have a good evening, Mr. Ward, and remember what I said."


	2. Chapter 2

_-31 years later, The Playground- _

Groaning, Skye stumbled into her little nook of the base and flipped on her primary monitors. The cup of coffee she carried, her one salvation following the night she'd had, landed with a careful thump beside her keyboard as she dropped heavily into the spinning chair. Without thought, her fingers flew over the keys as she booted up her station and brought the security cameras for the base online. It was the first thing she did every morning- check the security cameras to make sure nothing was out of place. But as she brought up the cameras, she knew something else had to be done before she could even begin to think about looking over the base.

The dream that had woken her so early still hovered at the edge of her mind- Ward, his hands in her hair and his lips on hers. The couch beneath her, his firm body above. It wasn't a nightmare- not by a long shot. But she needed to remember that it couldn't happen too, something her mind seemed to frequently forget.

Settling into the chair before the main console, Skye entered the keys she wanted without thinking about it and brought up an external connection point. Quickly, she accessed the back door she'd hidden in the security system of the prison and started to race through the digital speedway. Ten seconds later, she was safely inside the security firewall and out of digital sight. It was stupid, but she hadn't been able to settle until she'd had the little program in place. Something about being able to see him actually in his cell helped settle her mind sometimes. Especially when she had dreams like the one last night; Ward wasn't a good man, and she needed to remember that.

As the prison security cameras came up, Skye tried to relax back into her seat. It was unsettling every time she looked at her former SO trapped in that metal and cement cage, but he belonged there all the same. And her mind needed to remember that so it would stop feeding her images of what she couldn't have. In so many ways, it wasn't fair that Ward turned out to be evil. It wasn't fair that not one, but two men she'd cared about betrayed her. In a row, for that matter. It wasn't even a personal betrayal either; both were moral ones. Somehow, that made it all the worse.

Checking the monitors, Skye only bothered to half pay attention as she hit a few keys and loaded up the feed from the camera outside Ward's cell. Only, the feed wouldn't load. Instead, she was left with a black screen. _What the hell?_

Furrowing her brow, Skye focused her attention on the camera as she began to poke around the system. It took a few minutes to find the camera's main control system, but once she had, bringing up the status of every camera in the prison was easy. Locating the camera she needed on the list though, Skye felt her brow tighten. The camera was listed as offline.

_Why the hell would they turn off a prison camera?_ wondered Skye as she hit a few commands to check the actual state of the camera to ensure it was operational. The camera signaled back that it was functioning, which dismissed any thoughts she might have about malfunctioning hardware. _So why is this camera off? Aren't the cameras the primary means the guards have of monitoring the prisoners?_

Typing in a few more commands, Skye brought the camera back online but was careful to route the feed only to her monitor. If someone had turned that camera off intentionally, it wouldn't do her any good for them to see it had been brought back online. She was doubly careful to ensure that camera's status still read as offline as well. She'd worry about why the camera was off later- first she wanted to check on Ward. Every single bad prison movie she'd ever seen flashed through her mind as she waited for the feed to begin streaming, spiking her worry. What if the guards turned it off so the could beat the crap out of Ward? Or worse? What if the prisoners were the ones taking advantage of him?

It took a moment, but the feed flickered to life across Skye's monitor at last. The relief that rushed through her body, however, was very short lived. Almost immediately, she noticed what was likely the reason that the camera was off: Ward's cell was empty. Completely empty. The door wasn't even closed.

Panic flared through Skye like a wildfire. Every thought of him attempting to escape came rushing back to her, along with a list of people who could be assisting him. Raina sat at the top of that list, followed quickly by the still-missing Quinn and Hydra. Really, it could be anyone who was helping him escape and who knew how far of a head start they had.

Switching immediately to agent mode, Skye had the camera's time-stamped footage up in front of her in moments. Footage that showed Ward was still in his cell at 11:00, just before the camera was shut off. She was reaching for her phone to call and warn the Warden (she could always cite government observation of a traitor if he asked why she was monitoring the prison cameras) when movement on the camera caught her eye. Two men had appeared on the camera, a gurney stretched between them and a limp form thrown across the top. A very familiar, bulky, limp form. God had Ward put on some muscle. He'd been fit before, but now he looked like a god. Seriously, he was approaching Cap and Thor status.

In horror, Skye watched the two men half toss Ward back into his cell. It looked almost as if they were laughing as they turned away from the clearly unconscious former specialist. And the way they slammed the door spoke volumes about what had happened. These weren't a pair of men throwing a prisoner who tried to escape back in his cell- it was two men who had dragged a man they wanted to torment from his cell and were now reveling in their actions.

Skye's stomach lurched in horror and she almost had to bolt away from the computer. Yeah, Ward had messed up. He deserved to sit in a prison cell for a good, long time. But abuse by the guards? That was something he definitely didn't deserve.

It took several minutes for Skye's stomach to stop churning and it really only stopped when she saw Ward turn in his sleep. It showed that he was alive, at least. Now the big question was: what had they done to him?

* * *

_- 15 years earlier- _

Garrett flipped through the file his "old friend" had given him on his target. And by friend, he meant the former assistant of a missing scientist he'd beaten the crap out of about an hour ago. He actually did know the guy from ancient history- some kid he'd been in high school with. He'd beaten the guy up then, too.

Smirking a little at the memory, his eyes focused back on the sheets of paper in front of him, so carefully chronicling the young life he was after. The file in question referred to an experiment that had been so rudely stolen from his Hydra associates nearly a fifteen years ago. Well, more like hidden. The lead scientist had vanished like some kind of ghost in the wind, possibly dead and likely so firmly buried they'd never find the man. And with him, all of his work disappeared, too. After fifteen years, any trails had long gone cold.

But they'd found what might be the man's greatest experiment ever regardless, and Garrett had been tasked with stealing the boy back. Leaning back in his chair, the SHIELD agent stared blankly at the file. This boy's scores were off the chart without training; with proper motivation, who know what he could become? Smirking a bit, he picked up the grainy surveillance photo of the target in question. "What potential do you hold, Grant Ward? What will they squash when they lock you in a lab to figure out what makes you tick?"

Setting the photo aside, Garrett reached for his phone and began to enter the number for an old associate. Hydra wanted their experiment back, and that was all fine and dandy, but Garret had no intention of making the same mistake the US military initially had during World War II. Supersoldiers were only good so long as they were in the field, and he was damn well going to ensure that Grant Ward ended up in the field. Screw Hydra's plans; he could make plans of his own, too. And his plans would always trump theirs.

A grin cut across his face when the click came over the phone, indicating his associate had picked up. "George?"

"Yes?" echoed back a hard voice, more akin to a growl than an actual response. Clearly, someone was pressing George's buttons.

"Hey, it's John," greeted Garrett, flipping the pages in front of him until he came to the one related to Ward's recent arrest. "How've you been, buddy?"

"Kids suck, never have 'em," advised George with a heavy sigh. The echo of his chair creaking cut through the line as the man shifted position. "And the government needs better funding for chairs. Otherwise, pretty good."

"Glad to hear it," stated Garrett with a nod as he picked up the photo of Ward again. "Listen, George, I need a favor."


	3. Chapter 3

_-15 Years Later-_

Hours later, Skye leaned back away from her station with an unhappy noise. Digging through the prison's server, she'd found herself face to face with a rather disturbing pattern of events. The logs in the prison had been altered at least once every week for nearly the past three weeks. Furthermore, the records told a disturbing story.

The camera outside Ward's cell was turned off once a week from 11:45 pm to 4:30 am for supposed maintenance work. This would be believable if maintenance on the whole system weren't conducted once, monthly, in shifts around the prison that also included extra guards being added to the rosters in the affected areas. There were no extra guards assigned to the wing where Ward was when the camera went down. Furthermore, it was only the one camera outside Ward's cell that was taken offline for a long period of time. Of course, this entire thing was covered up: the official logs only showed the camera going down during the prescribed maintenance times; she'd had to activate the camera's internal log to find out that the camera was going down weekly for such a long period of time.

Then, once the camera was down, a second log showed that the door to Ward's cell being opened. It was always at 11:30, but the days varied between the weeks, so it was impossible to predict when this event would even happen. And once again, the official logs had been doctored to show something entirely different. Fortunately, nothing deleted was ever actually gone. It had taken some digging, but Skye had managed to pull the 'deleted' originals of the logs out of the archive. The person covering this mess up definitely wasn't a computer genius, but then again, anyone who came looking for this stuff probably wasn't as skilled as her either.

Staring at the computer screen, Skye tried to plan her next move. There was a definite pattern of action here, but the problem was that she couldn't be sure where Ward was being taken or for what purpose. And as much as she hated to admit it, there might be a legit reason for his weekly removal. Of course, there wasn't a single reason she could come up with for removing someone in the middle of the night from their cell that wasn't nefarious, but this was a prison. And it was Ward. Even if Skye felt like there was something decidedly not right about this whole thing, the others might not feel that way. She'd need more proof than just a potentially faulty camera and a door log to prove Ward was in danger. Otherwise Coulson would just get Ward moved to a new cell and she'd probably loose her access. Not that she couldn't find her way back in, but it was the whole idea of it that mattered. She'd just have to wait and see if she could catch these guys in the act. At least they were consistent in their timing. In the mean time, she'd just have to dig around a little and see if she could find anything that might explain what was happening.

_-Six Days Later-_

It was nearly a week before it happened again. Every night, Skye snuck back into the control room for the base's security to watch the monitors for any sign of whoever was taking Ward out of his cell. It wasn't all in vain though: she did use the time to do some digging into Ward's past. Plus, these guys might not be accurate as to the day they'd come for Ward, but they were appalling punctual. Whoever was turning off the camera and opening Ward's cell was doing it at the same time, every time.

So she'd impatiently wait until 11:30 every night and even wait an extra hour after to make sure they weren't coming before heading to bed. Well, if she went to bed. There were a few nights she definitely hadn't slept, but she'd gotten a lot of work done so it wasn't all bad. And waiting for Ward's associates to show up was a great time to dig into the man's past for any reason this could be happening. Not that she'd found a reason. Hinky things? Oh hell yes, lots of them. But nothing that would explain why he was being allowed out of his cell in the middle of the night. Or, well, being dragged out.

It was no different that night either: the clock was approaching 11:30 steadily and there was still no sigh of what was happening. Ward lay on his bunk like he did every night, body stiff and face tense. He always looked like he expected some kind of attack (not that Skye really blamed him after what she'd seen). How he slept that way was anyone's guess. Then again, he'd been on the run so long, maybe it was just habit.

She'd been reading something from Ward's file when the camera flickered off. Immediately, her adrenaline kicked up. Right then, show time.

Digging into the system and rerouting the feed like she had before, Skye remotely booted the camera back up and held her breath. Uneasily, Skye drummed her fingers on the table and waited with a twisting stomach for whatever was to come. Guards were her bet; guards coming to beat the crap out of Ward for being a traitor. If he deserved that or not, Skye was still trying to figure out, but the idea that he was being beaten for his choices didn't settle well with her. Whatever it was though, she was expecting the worst. After all, what else should she expect?

Then the camera came back online and what Skye found was much, much worse than anything she'd imagined.

Five men were standing outside Ward's cell with a man in a white lab coat standing behind them. All three were wearing body armor and carrying what looked like batons. Inside the cell, Ward hadn't moved. Skye's stomach twisted violently as she watched one armored man open Ward's cell door and step inside.

She barely saw Ward move before the first guard went flying from inside the cell. The guard's baton was in his hand as a second guard made an approach, trying to tackle the specialist to the ground. Ward evaded the man, driving the baton against the back of the man's head with a speed that surprised even Skye. As the second guard fell though, the third got Ward from behind and, for a moment, it looked like the specialist was going down.

Then Ward flipped the third guy like a pancake and sent him crashing into his second buddy in a move that Skye couldn't even begin to follow. Then the last two jumped into the fray and managed to get Ward on the ground. It works for all of two second before he got an arm free and had a hand wrapped around one guard's baton. But he never got the chance to use it.

Skye hadn't even noticed the man in the coat move until he was behind Ward. The footage was grainy, but Skye knew a syringe when she saw it. Then Ward went limp and the two guards on top of him climbed off. One kicked Ward's ribs before moving away to help his thrown buddies up while the other grabbed a gurney just out of sight of the camera. Minutes later, Ward was secured by straps on the gurney and being wheeled away.

Rapidly, Skye brought up the security feeds and began flipping through the cameras trying to find the group. It took a few seconds, but she caught the men a minute later wheeling Ward towards an unknown destination. She pulled up blueprints of the prison while continuing to track the cameras, trying to pinpoint where the group might be headed. But the guards were moving fast, making the fact that this whole thing was nefarious more apparent. Especially with the way the guards' eyes kept darting around. After another few seconds of trying to both track the men and watch the map, she gave up and focused solely on tracking the group. She could always back-track their path later by looking at what camera's she accessed.

Anxiety crawled up Skye's spine as she watch the guards escort the gurney through the halls with an ease that confirmed her suspicions this was at least a 'every few days' event. It seemed like hours before they reached a set of elevator doors. There, the first guard called the car while white coat proceeded to poke at the still unconscious Ward. It was disgusting the way White-coat was looking at her former SO like some kind of science specimen. She'd seen Simmons get that look in her eye whenever they gave her something to dissect.

Fear flipped Skye's stomach. God, they weren't going to dissect him, right? They'd brought him back alive all the other nights. No, they couldn't. There'd be no way to cover up something like that. This had to be something else entirely.

The doors to the elevator suddenly slid open and the guards began quickly ushering White-coat and the gurney inside. Skye took the moment they spent doing that to access the Prison's elevator grid. She couldn't tell which elevator they were on, so she looked for the one that started moving instead. Sure enough, one of the elevators near the end of the prison with the Clinic activated a second later.

Quickly, she pulled up the corresponding camera but found there was no way to see what floor they were heading for. The camera was trained, facing away from the doors, on the passengers. Glancing at the elevator's information panel, she found the floor access records easily. But there was no floor listed for where the elevator was going. In fact, the elevator showed up as being active but that was it. The floor log wasn't shown.

A quick scan of the system found the elevator's control center and Skye was quick to pull it up. The floors were all listed inside, indicating the elevator moved between five above-ground floors and a basement. The problem was, the elevator didn't report going to any of those floors. Then, buried near the bottom, she found another floor. It was listed as 'restricted-maintenance level'. Except the elevator's maintenance level was on the top above the car according to the blueprints of the building. So what the hell was on this supposed 'maintenance' level?

The maintenance floor doors lit up on her screen and a second later she watched as Ward was wheeled out of the elevator onto another floor. A floor Skye couldn't find anywhere on the blueprints or in the camera listings. She tried everything, flipping through every camera she could think of in her attempt to find Ward, but after ten minutes she'd looked at every feed twice and come up with nothing.

Ward and his captors had disappeared inside a maximum security prison.

* * *

_-15 Years Earlier-_

He definitely wasn't what Garrett was expecting. Borderline scrawny, beaten down, haunted; Grant Ward definitely didn't look like a Captain America. He didn't look like any kind of soldier. In fact, he looked more like some scruffy stray- more Coulson's kind than his. Still, the kid's skills spoke for themselves. Off the chart hand-eye coordination, high stamina and endurance; if the kid weren't getting kicked out for committing a felony and going AWOL, he would have made one hell of a soldier. That alone made this conversation potentially worth while.

All Garrett needed to do was try to sway the kid. He'd run his tests afterward and see if it was worth his time to keep Ward. After all, they had no proof the experiments were actually successful or that Ward really was the missing guinea pig. If the experiment failed or Ward didn't have some valuable skill set, it wasn't worth Garrett's time to train him. And if the kid was didn't have the stomach for this work in either case, he was only good to as a lab animal. If that was the case, Garret would let Hydra's science division take Ward off his hands and do what they wanted to with the kid.

And right now, it didn't look like Ward was going to be worth his time.

Still, something about the idea he might be the missing experiment made Ward more appealing. And hey, what was Garrett really loosing if he tried this? A little time? He'd rather loose a little of his time figuring out if the kid was worth training or not than just give him up and loose the opportunity. After all, what Hydra didn't know about Grant Ward could benefit Garrett just fine.

So he leaned back in the chair, sipping the crappy prison coffee and waited to meet the kid who might or might not be some kind of supersoldier. What he got was anything but disappointing.

As soon as he met Grant Ward's eyes, he knew this kid was worth his time. Distrust, repressed anger, and under it all: loneliness. He felt abandoned, which about stacked up with what Garrett had found out about the kid's family's current pending charges. It was why he was here now rather than later. If Ward was tried as an adult, making the entire record disappear would be lot harder. As of right now, everything would land in a juvenile folder he could get discretely pushed away from any prying eyes. After all, the first thing he'd need to do after making the kid disappear off the grid was doctor his records. The more time that passed after he'd doctored the kid's records, the more likely that was the doctored story would be accepted. Memory was such a remarkably easy thing to manipulate. Change a simple piece of paper and everyone would change their story.

Watching Ward sit down, Garrett mentally prepared his little speech. Right now he needed to get the kid to come with him; a task that shouldn't be hard at all. It wasn't like anyone had ever done the kid any favors before. And Garrett was about to do him the biggest favor of all.


	4. Chapter 4

_-15 Years Later-_

Groaning hours later, Skye thumped her head against the back of her chair and checked the pilfered video feed once again. Still no sign of Ward. His cell door was still open and as empty as the last time she'd checked. A glance at the clock showed it was nearly 4:30. His captors should be bringing him back soon.

Ever since they'd disappeared, Skye had been standing vigil at her computer. There was no way in hell she'd be able to sleep after what she witnessed. Instead, she'd gone back through everything she could find about Ward- every document, report, or photo that even mentioned the agent. And there was a lot.

SHIELD alone had several hundred documents relating to the ex-agent. But everything had fallen short. What she had wasn't everything; Skye knew that based on how little documentation she could find about the man (and how fake most of it seemed). It was a safe bet his past had been doctored. If this was because there were things in his past SHIELD or someone/something else (Hydra, Garrett, maybe even Ward himself) hadn't wanted people to know or if it was because his history was fake, Skye didn't know. It was pretty obvious someone had been playing with Ward's records though, and that as making it harder to figure this out. She hadn't even been able to find his birth certificate on file anywhere.

If she thought for five seconds he'd tell her the truth, she would just go ask him in person. But after the lies (months and months of lies), how could she trust a word he said? Besides, whatever this clandestine business was that had White-coat removing Ward from his cell meant she didn't want to risk contacting her former SO. What would happen if someone got suspicious she knew? Would they kill Ward to keep their secret? Possibly, and that was something Skye didn't want to risk. At minimum they needed Ward alive to tell them what these guys were doing to him.

Leaning back, Skye rubbed her eyes as her mind flickered through all the places she'd already searched for anything on the former agent. The hospitals had some injury records that implied child abuse (at least that part of Ward's history was apparently real) and a social services call or two from his region had been dredged up, but she couldn't find any record of his birth and his school record ended when he was fourteen. It was like he'd fallen off the map after that.

"Okay, where haven't I looked?" muttered Skye, rubbing her eyes as she stared at the ceiling. Sporadically, her eyes jumped to the monitor she was using before sliding away again. Some metaphor about pots and boiling stuff slid through her brain, but in her exhausted state it made no sense. Ultimately, she really needed to sleep. "Ugh, okay, think. Where do you usually find records of people? Taxes? Ward would be too young. I've already searched school and medical records for him. Where would I look if it was for anyone else? If I was erasing my own identity again, where would I look for the files? Police records, foster system records, and newspapers...could Ward have a juvie record? Wait, foster system. Adoption records!"

Immediately, Skye shot up in her seat. Could Ward be adopted? It would explain a lack of birth record or a birth certificate. The family had been living in the house for years before she found even a slight record of Ward, so if he was born to them it should have shown up in the records. Plus, she'd found all of Ward's siblings without an issue (who knew he had a sister? Weird...). Every single one of them had been born in the same hospital, but Ward's birth records were conspicuously absent. So unless Ward's mom decided to give birth in another state, he should have been born there, too. But he wasn't.

Pulling up adoption records from the closest Child Welfare center, Skye barely had to look to find the file she wanted: Ward, G. D. Most of the file was sealed, as expected, but she could find the adoption date easily enough: January 7, 1983. Ward's birthday, according to SHIELD's files.

Skye's mind began to race, trying to piece together the information she had. She knew how these records worked though, and if she wanted the full record, she'd have to find a way to steal it. That's how she'd gotten her own non-digital records after all.

Rubbing her eyes, she let her head fall back, already making plans for how to get a copy of that record. She'd have to get out to Plymouth. Unless she could talk her way to getting a digitized version of the file, which she probably couldn't, the only way to get her hands on this particular record would be a trip to the center. Which meant someone was going to have to fly her out there because there was no way she could drive there with any kind of efficiency from The Playground.

_Maybe whoever put Ward up for adoption will give me some clue about why this is happening. Hey, at least this means the assholes who raised Ward weren't actually his parents. Why would you even adopt a kid only to beat the shit out of him? It's not like they couldn't have their own children. _Then, a rather disturbing thought crossed her mind. _God, does Ward even know?Is he even aware that he's adopted? Or has he been living a lie for his whole life? He sure as hell never mentioned being adopted. He was definitely abused too. Between the hospital records, police records, and school records, there's no doubt something was wrong in that household. I'm just gonna have to ask him when we get him out._

It wasn't a question of if, either. This was a when. She just needed something to prove to Coulson they had reason to spring him. But first, she needed those records.

* * *

_-15 Years Earlier-_

It was hard to resist drumming his fingers nervously as Garrett drove himself and his new charge towards Wyoming. The kid in question was currently dozing beside him in the passenger seat, tense and clearly not actually asleep. He didn't look like he'd had any kind of decent sleep in ages. Whatever they'd been promised, Hydra didn't get their supersoldier. Yeah, Grant Ward showed all signs of having the potential to be a fantastic soldier, but he wasn't a _born_ soldier. He needed to be molded and trained. About all he had was off the charts hand-eye coordination and more strength than expected for his size. It had been noted in the records he routinely held back his strength, too. The few times he hadn't, people ended up in medical. He needed to be trained, badly.

But first things first: Garrett wanted to make sure Ward was worth his time. And to do that, he needed to give the kid a chance to stand on his own. Whatever his family had done to him had left Ward almost incapable of individual thought. Obviously there was still the potential (he'd tried to burn his parents house down for Christ's sake), but the application was rare. The reality was, Ward didn't seem to know what to do. As soon as Garrett had given him a command, he'd taken it. He was dependent on others for direction. If that was what Hydra had asked for or not, Garrett wasn't sure. But he sure as hell was going to utilize it. He'd already buried Ward as a potential supersoldier, reporting back the kid just showed abnormal talent without the superior qualities that man-made soldier were supposed to display. If that really was all there was to this kid or not, he didn't know. But either way, Ward had potential and that alone was worth a gamble.

And this first test was the biggest gamble Garrett could make. Between the heat that was going to come up over their little prison break and Ward's dependency issues, Garret couldn't keep the kid with him. It was too risky. Of course, burying the kid in one of his safe houses in another country was an option, but it wouldn't really give Ward the opportunity to become semi-self dependent. It was a trait Ward needed to gain fast, too. And the best way to force Ward to become self-sufficient and semi-self dependent was to drop the kid into a situation that would force him to take on those traits or die. Specifically, he needed a situation that wasn't easy to escape from that would force Ward to become self-sufficient.

The need for Ward to both disappear and become self sufficient pointed towards one thing: a camping trip. One that only Ward was going to be taking. Yeah, abandoning a kid in the middle of the woods with nothing was risky, but if Ward really was a super-soldier, he could handle it without a problem. Hell, if Ward was strong enough to be what Garrett wanted to turn him into, he'd survive. Garrett's own dad had done this to him and he'd made it out alive. It turned him into a survivor, and it would do the same for Ward. Plus, the isolation would do the kid some good- give him a chance to live on his own, with no one telling him what to do. Maybe help him get his thoughts under control.

Of course, Garrett wasn't as cruel as his old man; he'd leave something to help Ward out. Behind him, he could hear Buddy whine slightly as the dog lifted his head. The dog would be Ward's companion out here and would be Garrett's way of tracking the kid. Buddy's collar was laced with a tracker Garrett could use to keep an eye on the two. Not that he wouldn't be doing visual check-ups too when he had the chance, but this way he could monitor them from wherever he ended up.

Smirking a bit, Garrett checked his map and then turned slightly off the road, towards some old land his family owned. It was private property, marked as such, and would serve as the perfect place to stash his potential protege until the heat died down. He needed time to pave the way for Ward to be accepted into SHIELD and plant the roots that would ensure Ward was both loyal to him and would pass any test thrown at him in the future. And the first test was upon him.


	5. Chapter 5

_-15 Years Later-_

"Come on Trip, please?" Skye couldn't believe she'd resorted to begging. For _Ward_ of all people at that. But regardless of her personal reservations, she needed to figure out what was going on. At minimum they needed to know if this was a hydra plot or not. Whoever was taking Ward at night was doing it for reason and, if there was a doctor involved, it couldn't be good. She'd checked his prison medical records- there was nothing in there that indicated his semi-sporadic night time removal was prison sanctioned.

"Look Skye, if you want to dig in Ward's past, do it the way you do best: by computer," instructed Trip as he threw a punch at the bag in front of him. "If you call the adoption agency and tell them you need it for a government investigation-"

"Into what?" countered Skye with a growl, reaching out to stop the bag. "Unauthorized prison experimentation? Do you know what they'll do?"

Sighing, Trip stepped back from the bag and leveled his gaze at Skye. For a moment, he just tried to stare her down. She just stared back harder. He stopped with the intimidation tactics a moment later, shaking his head as he moved around her for his water. "You really believe he's in trouble."

"I watched them drug Ward and drag him out of his cell," repeated Skye, one of her hands shoving its way into her hair as the anxiety about everything built. "That's not normal Trip. You can't tell me it is, either. There's no excuse that isn't demented, messed up, or evil."

"And all you need me to do is drive," stated Trip, repeating her earlier request back as he looked up at her again, bottle in hand.

"Just drive," confirmed Skye with a nod, offering him the best puppy look she could. Maybe she'd get lucky and it would work this time.

"And you can't go to Coulson because..." asked Trip, his frown deepening. Skye could see him starting to cave though. It was in his eyes- the look of resignation she'd come to recognize as Trip's way of giving in.

"Because it's Ward and AC will just say no unless I can prove there's something weird going on," explained Skye, with a frustrated sigh. She hated keeping things from AC, but she knew how he'd react to this all the same: anything dealing with Garrett or Ward was pretty much a no-go zone with the new head of SHIELD. He didn't want to hear excuses or stories and he wasn't willing to listen to anything that might be grounds for them interacting with or helping Ward. Skye couldn't exactly blame him, but it was really, really inconvenient at this exact time.

"So what's in this file that you think will help prove something weird is going on with Ward?" asked Trip as he finally gave in. He shifted so he was leaning on one of the struts in the gym, face pulled in a contemplative frown as he took a sip from his water.

"Whoever put Ward up for adoption," explained Skye, following him to the joist. "I can't find a birth certificate for Ward or even one that looks like it could be Ward as like, a stolen baby or something. The SHIELD files say it exists, but I can't find outside the file anywhere that would make sense. I need to figure out who put him up for adoption and where his papers say he was born. Then maybe I can get somewhere with this."

Trip took a long drink, his eyes narrowed at Skye for a moment before he set the water bottle back down with a sigh. "Alright Skye, I'll help."

Skye nearly collapsed in relief; the idea of driving to Plymouth was completely unappealing. Plus, she was pretty sure going missing for 18 hours would cause some concern. Which was exactly why she needed Trip to fly her there. That way at least, they could get there and back without being gone for long. Plus, Skye could pass it off as surveillance of a target (which it was, kind of). "Thank you, Trip. You seriously don't know how much I didn't want to make that drive."

"Yeah, I get it," assured Trip, shaking his head a bit. "I just hope you know what you're doing, Skye."

_So do I,_ thought Skye as she nodded with a big grin plastered across her face. She wasn't about to tell Trip that she honestly had no clue what she was going to find or if it was going to lead to any answers. All she really knew what that she was out of leads except for this file and if it wasn't in the file, she was going to have to make a trip to speak with Ward himself. And somehow, she didn't think he'd have any answers either.

* * *

-_Plymouth, Mass., 4 hours later-_

The Plymouth branch of the Child Welfare office was as drab as Skye had imagined it probably would be. Not for the first time, she was grateful she'd been in an orphanage and not the foster care system; places like this were not what any child should see when their life had just been turned upside down. The nuns may have been strict but at least they clearly cared for the children they looked over. Plus, they had better decorating taste- their rooms didn't all look like the inside of a prison.

Behind Skye, Trip caught the glass door before it could close, trailing a few feet after her. Despite his insistence that he didn't want to be involved in this and that he was only coming along as a pilot, he'd ended up driving her to the building without any additional prompting on her end. And now, he was following her into the building. Skye just barely kept from smirking; clearly Trip's curiosity had gotten the best of him.

"So what's your plan, anyway?" asked Trip quietly, eying the drab waiting room and its occupants. Many couples were scattered around the room, some clearly more put together than others. A few teens were scattered into the mix, boredom in their eyes as they looked around the room. A few of the girls were still swollen in the midsection- clearly recently no longer pregnant but not by much time. Compared to the rest, Skye and Trip looked like outsiders.

Quickly, Skye shoved her hand between Trip's elbow and his body, taking his arm like she might if they were married. She just hoped Simmons wouldn't kill her for this later. The scientist's crush on the specialist wasn't exactly well hidden. "We just need to get into the back room. Play along."

Leading Trip over to the reception desk, Skye leaned on the counter and offered the woman a smile. The receptionist behind the glass, an older woman who looked like she'd rather be anywhere but where she was, glanced up at them with tired eyes. "Can I help you?"

"Hi, we're Mr. and Mrs. Tripson. We have an appointment with Ms. Parwinkle," replied Skye, offering the woman her biggest smile. It was the only adoption agent who's calender had any space when Skye checked it on the way to the center. As tempting as it was to swap her name with the name of another couple on someone else's calender, she just couldn't do it. Not to someone who was actually looking to use the services. They were just going to buy some time for her to do what she needed to. With Trip along, that would be even easier now.

The woman behind the glass made some noise of acknowledgment and pulled up what she was assuming was the appointment book of the mentioned agent. It took a moment, but the receptionist nodded eventually and buzzed them through. "She'll meet you in her office. Third one down on the right."

"Thanks," thanked Skye. "Um," leaning towards the glass, she offered the receptionist a friendly grin. "Where's your bathroom?"

Again, the receptionist gave Skye a sour look before pointing to the door she'd just buzzed open. "Down the hall, on the left."

"Thanks," thanked Skye as she steered both her and Trip into the hallway. As soon as they were in the hallway and out of sight, she dropped his arm and focused on where they were. The blueprints she'd managed to get from the city town hall (they really needed better security; who used 'password' as their password?) indicated the file room would be off the main hallway near the end and passed the offices. Hopefully, getting in wouldn't be that hard; it wasn't like this was Fort Knox after all.

"So what's your plan again?" asked Trip as he leaned towards Skye. "I don't really want to go in without knowing what your plan is."

Plan, right. She still kinda needed one of those. She should have probably had one of those before getting inside, but she hadn't been sure what was going to happen once she was inside. And it wasn't like this was a Hydra base, the people weren't going to have guns. They'd just ask them to leave.

Except now Trip expected her to have a plan, which she didn't have. Great. Well, improvisation wasn't her worst skill. "I need to get to the room at the end of this hallway. Which means I need a distraction."

"Then you should have left me in the waiting room," muttered Trip, shaking his head a bit. "There were options out there."

"Look, just make something up," insisted Skye, shaking her head a bit as she did. "Pretend the social worker is a really hot girl. Pretend she's May. Or Simmons. Simmons is probably less intimidating."

"Who says I don't like intimidating," challenged Trip, even as he shifted a little uncomfortably beside Skye.

If she weren't so focused on getting what she needed, she probably would have laughed. As things stood, she filed the information away for later mocking. "I'm so coming back to that later, when we aren't in a time crunch. Look, just go distract the agent and let me get the file. It'll give me some cover in case I'm caught. I'll meet you in the room once I have it."

"Right, because asking for it is out of the question," muttered Trip, turning away from her. He started down the hallway all the same, shoulders a little tenser than normal and eyes locked straight ahead.

Skye didn't wait for him to disappear into the office before she ducked into the restroom. She didn't actually need to use the restroom, but on the off chance someone saw her in the halls, ducking inside was her best bet. Plus she needed to check the blueprints of the building and disguise herself a bit before she proceeded.

Locking the door behind her, Skye pulled up the building's schematics and glanced over the designs once more. The large room marked 'file storage' was clearly placed in the back of the building- she just hoped Ward's file would actually be there. If Garrett was anything like her, he might have already snagged and destroyed the file.

Taking a deep breath, she turned off the screen and crept back to the door of the bathroom. It was silent on the other side, meaning she was still in the clear. Yanking off her jacket, Skye shoved it into the shoulder bag she'd had hidden beneath it and yanked a pair of glasses from inside which she held between her teeth. Roughly, she pulled her hair half up onto the back of her head, making sure her bangs were still down to help disguise her face. A glance at the mirror confirmed she looked as harrowed as any civil servant likely would; especially a courier or case worker. Settling the glasses on her face- the same pair Ward had used in Eastern Europe to navigate the science building place- and clipping on a faked badge she'd whipped up while waiting for Trip and she was ready to go. It wasn't much of a disguise and the badge wouldn't hold up to close scrutiny, but it was enough of one that she wouldn't be stopped for not having one. If the key code required badge access though, she might be in trouble; she hadn't had time to actually program the badge to work.

Stepping back into the hallway, Skye flicked the glasses on and let them do their thing. She could see various agents in their offices, some with clients, some alone, and two doing something...they really shouldn't be doing at work. Huh, kinky. So much for her concerns about video cameras; hopefully Trip hadn't taken her suggestion seriously.

No one emerged from any of the offices as she headed down the hall towards the file room and she only spotted one other, extremely hurried, looking individual on her way through. Well, until she hit the final twenty feet of the hall. Her luck promptly dropped when she spotted a security guard coming out of an office right beside the file storage area. For a moment, she thought she was going to get caught. If he stopped her, she probably would be. Then she noticed his uniform- the slightly skewed nature of his collar, his ruffled hair...and the fact that what she'd thought was an office was actually a janitor's closet. Wow, talk about school-grade romance.

Said guard looked up at her as she approached, shifting a little uncomfortably. He hardly glanced at her ID as she walked passed, likely out of habit more than actual concern or interest. Clearly, the guard was too embarrassed to actually call her on anything even if he did suspect something was wrong.

Skye didn't waste the opportunity either. She passed him as calmly as she could, heading straight for the storage room. The door was at the end of the hall was in clear view, but unfortunately so was a key pad. Shit. She had no clue what the key code was and she couldn't exactly text Trip to have him help her get it. From what she could see, he was engaged in just keeping the social worker busy. From the looks of it, she was possibly putting the moves on Trip to boot. Again, something she'd have to mock him about later.

Stopping front of the door, Skye lay her hand on the handle and just stared at the key pad for a second. There had to be a way to figure out how to open the door. She couldn't see anyone else on the other side of the door though; no one who might come out so she could slip in. No, she needed the code. But what could it be? Given the type of lock, it was probably individually assigned and she wasn't a criminal, no matter what she'd done with the Red Tide.

"_I've come this far, I can't quit now,"_ thought Skye desperately. _"There's got to be a way in."_ Touching the door above the keypad with her other hand, Skye closed her eyes and tried to think. _"Ugh, I wish the door would just-"_

The handle beneath Skye's palm gave way without warning. It was so sudden, Skye almost let it go. Instinct was the only reason she held on. When it turned completely down, enough that she could open the door, she didn't question it. The keypad was probably either broken or just for show; this was a government office after all.

Without hesitating, she yanked the door open and slipped inside. Rows upon rows of filing cabinets greeted her inside, stretching across the room in a seemingly never-ending sea, each identical to the next. It was almost overwhelming to be faced with such a massive amount of information. Where was a large file transfer when you needed one?

Immediately, Skye jumped to the closest cabinet and checked the labels listed. The files in the room should only relate to children from the area or who were adopted into the area. At least, that's what she was hoping. The file location had been listed as this center, so hopefully it was actually here and in-tact. The problem would be finding it; Skye had a tablet with her, but bringing it online to access the filing system could theoretically give her location away. She wasn't in the Playground and her tablet didn't have the power her computers did. Hiding herself from their system would be harder without the equipment. Too bad there was no room in her bag for a computer.

"Alright, Ward would be under W..." muttered Skye, pulling open a drawer to check the file letter. The name 'Clandens' was printed across the tab. _Right, so I'm in C. _Unfortunately, there were no signs to indicate where she needed to go and she didn't have a lot of time. Trip could only delay the agent so long before someone went looking for her and she was too far from the office to check what was going on.

Bolting to the opposite end of the room and hoping it was right, she pulled open the first drawer she could find and pulled out a file. Uhura. _U. That's closer at least._ Carefully replacing the file, Skye crept along a few more cabinets before opening another drawer. She nearly cheered when she saw the the first file name was Wadder. Switching to the bottom drawer, she checked the first file and found Werren. _So it's probably near the top. _Shutting the drawer, she pulled open the second drawer down and caught sight of the name Warren near the back. Meaning Ward was in the drawer.

Her fingers were inches from the files when voices approaching the room started to filter in. Well, there went any luck she'd had before that point. It was possible whoever was coming was headed to another room (or the janitor's closet), but it was equally possible they were heading for the storage room as well.

Cursing, Skye's eyes darted down to the drawer, scanning rapidly across the tabs in search of the one she needed. It was made just a _little _harder with the sound of footprints bearing down on her. God, how had Ward managed to work under pressure like this? The steps were outside the door as her eyes landed on a file labeled 'Ward'. Except when Skye pulled out the first one, she noticed two more directly behind it. There were no initials on the files either, so she had no clue which was which. It was entirely possible she was about to steal some poor, innocent kid's file.

"If I do I'll mail it back," muttered Skye, snatching up all three files and shoving them in her bag. She was closing the drawer when a beep came from the keypad. Apparently whatever glitch had allowed her in was fixed and she was about to get caught if she didn't do something fast.

Shutting the drawer as quietly as she could, Skye ducked down so she was below the line of the filing cabinets and held her breath as she listened to the person enter.

"I'm grabbing the file now," came a female voice, irritation flooding her tone as her heels clicked on the floor. "Just give me a minute."

"What I'm wondering is why you didn't pull the file sooner," came back a second vice, this one male, as the door clicked shut. She could hear both people walking around as they moved along the filing cabinets towards the opposite end of the room.

Staying low, Skye slipped off her heels so she wouldn't click and shuffled as quickly as she could to the edge of the cabinet's row. She pressed herself against the end of the cabinets for a moment, listening to the two people as they continued to chatter. If she could get to the door, maybe she could slip out without them noticing. Her only other option was to hide while they grabbed the file and hope they didn't come around to where she was crouched down. Her one stroke of luck was the fact they appeared to be concerned with something on the other end of the rows.

She could hear both of the agents chattering and arguing but couldn't actually understand a word they were saying. The filing cabinets were muffling most of the sound and keeping it from vibrating down to where Skye was crouched. Which also meant she couldn't figure out which files they were after or if they needed more than one.

Minutes seemed to crept by as she listened to the arguing pair, waiting to see what they would do. Even if she did make it to the door, the cabinets weren't quite high enough to completely block her exit. Of course, they wouldn't see who had left either, but they might find it odd that they saw no sign of someone else in the room. Unfortunately, she also wasn't sure how long they would take and she was running out of time.

Checking her phone for the time, Skye noted three messages from Trip, all of which indicated he was having trouble distracting their supposed agent. Or that he was in need of saving; two of the messages implied he was under duress. Shit, she'd need to try to slip out the door. At least her glasses didn't show anyone outside.

Checking on the position of the two arguing employees. Skye found they were in the back of the room now, away from the door and tucked in the corner. She couldn't completely tell what they were doing, but wasn't sure she wanted to know either. Their arguing was still pretty violent, but they both sounded out off breath as well and silence kept falling at random times. Hopefully, whatever they were doing (geez, was there something in the water in this place?), it would keep them distracted long enough for her to escape.

Taking a deep breath, Skye quickly darted to front of the room again and began moving for the door. She wouldn't be able to hide if she got caught right now, so she'd just have to move as quickly as she could. The hallway beyond was still empty, so at least she was safe from that point forward. It felt like forever before she was at the door, the shouting of the pair becoming less and less common, more replaced by long silences that indicated they were probably doing things that shouldn't be happening in the work place. Well, at least not a place where kids were likely to be.

Turning the handle quietly, Skye pulled the door open a little ways, just enough that she could squeeze through standing, and slid outside into the hallway. It was as deserted as she'd thought it would be and Skye almost let out a sigh of relief at the sight, quickly shutting the door behind her. She didn't think twice about ducking into the janitor's closet to pull her jacket back on, slip back on her shoes, and loose the glasses and hair.

When she was relatively sure that a) the horny pair were were still well and truly occupied by one another inside the file room and b) that there was no one outside the door, Skye took the risk and slipped out into the hall again. She didn't pass another person as she headed towards the office where Trip was hopefully still stationed with the Agent, careful to make sure once more she'd completely removed all elements of her disguise before she stepped inside.

Trip was slightly scrunched down in his seat, looking uncomfortable (if you knew him at least) and doing his best to smile at the agent. Ms. Parwinkle, by contrast, was leaning forward and looked like she had her best flirtatious smile on her face. She was younger than Skye'd thought she would be, but that kind of made sense. No everyone who worked in these places had to be old. Though the cardigan-style sweater and severe bun weren't helping her look younger, even with the chopsticks.

Ms. Parwinkle sat up almost immediately, folding her hands in front of her as she eyed Skye. Skye couldn't honestly remember why she'd made the appointment, so hopefully Trip had come up with something. She'd have to follow his lead on this one.

"Sorry, I think I ate something bad," apologized Skye with a tentative smile. Closing the door, she walked over to the second chair across the desk from Ms. Parwinkle and settled down.

"That's alright," assured Ms. Parwinkle, suddenly all business, "we were just finishing up. I have given your friend all of the information he needs on our adoption policies and what perspective parents need to do in order to apply. He can run through everything and then, should you decide on adoption, you can come back and we will start filling out the paperwork."

"Oh, alright," stated Skye, turning to Trip and offering him a smile. "You have everything then?"

"Got it all right here," assured Trip, holding up the file and offering Skye a flirty smile. "Everything we need to know, sweetheart."

Skye had to force herself not to smirk or laugh. It was pretty apparent that the woman had been pushing poor Trip's buttons; it didn't take a genius to figure that out. And obviously he wanted to get out of there as fast as he could. "Cool. I guess we'll contact you if we decide this is best, then."

"You're free to call if you have questions, too," assured Ms. Parwinkle, though she was looking at Trip as she spoke. Her eyes were half lidded, her smile welcoming. It was really, really hard for Skye to stop herself from laughing. Oh, she was going to mock Trip about this for weeks. Well, probably not; he had done her a massive favor by just bringing her here, after all.

"We'll keep that in mind," assured Trip, offering his own kind smile in return, though he was careful to keep it from becoming flirtatious. He nearly pushed Skye out of the office in his hurry to leave. "Thanks for all your help. We'll call if we have questions." He pulled Ms. Parwinkle's office door shut before she could say anything more, half dragging Skye down the hall in his attempts to escape quickly. Before Ms. Parwinkle decided to come after him, probably.

He more or less tugged her out of the building without pause, even when the woman behind the counter tried to get their attention. As soon as they got outside though, Skye's attempts to restrain her laughter failed. Trip ignored her, instead hopping in the front set of their car and starting the engine. She followed into the passenger side as quickly as she could while laughing like a hyena. Her door was barely shut before Trip was accelerating away from the curb.

"I really hope you got what you needed Skye, because we are not going back there," insisted Trip. "That woman was hitting on me. Heavily."

"I got that," laughed Skye, pulling out the three files and flipping open the top file as her laughter finally subsided. "Don't worry, I won't tell Simmons or Fitz that you were overwhelmed by the flirtations of a mousy government worker."

"Thank you, I'm saved from embarrassment," muttered Trip, fringes of sarcasm laced through his tone. Settling into the driver's seat, Trip began navigating back towards the private airstrip they'd landed at as Skye flipped open the top file. "What's with all of the files, anyway? I thought you needed one."

"I do need one," confirmed Skye distantly, her eyes never leaving the file."But I'm not sure which one. All three of these were just labeled 'Ward'."

"That seems ineffective," remarked Trip, guiding the car easily through midtown traffic. He cursed and honked as some idiot in a Prius cut him off. "Who do the other two files belong to?"

"This first one belongs to an Andrew Ward," replied Skye, brow furrowing in confusion. "That's...I think this file is Ward's dad's."

"His dad?" repeated Trip in surprise. "What is his dad doing with a social services file?"

"I have no clue," muttered Skye, shifting the first file to the bottom of the stack and opening the second one. "But the second file belongs to an Arthur Ward, who, according to the other file, is the brother of Andrew Ward."

"So, both Ward's dad and his uncle had encounters with social services," concluded Trip, nodded slowly. "Does it say why?"

"Uh," Skye flipped through the file quickly, skimming the papers inside. "It looks like something happened to their parents? It says they were placed in the ward of the state because no suitable guardian existed. Their father's occupation is listed as biochemist, though."

"Maybe he got killed in a lab accident," suggested Trip, glancing over at the files as he stopped at a red light.

Skye skimmed Arthur's file quickly, pausing about three pages in. "I don't think so. According to Arthur's file, he disappeared from his foster home four years after he was placed there. They thought unknown family may have kidnapped him, though his father, Cyrus Ward, was listed as a possible suspect."

"What about his brother?" asked Trip, straightening to drive again. "Did he disappear, too?"

"No," replied Skye slowly, flipping back to the first file again. "According to this, after his brother disappeared, Andrew was moved to a new location and officers assigned to watch the location where he was staying."

"Officers?" repeated Trip, one of his eyebrows rising in surprise. "Who did they think was after these kids?"

"No clue," sighed Skye, closing the first two files and pulling out the third. When she flipped this one open, the first thing she noted was the name on the file: Grant Ward. _Well, at least I did get Grant's file after all. _Her eyes darted across the first page curiously, brow furrowing the further down she read.

"See what you were hoping to in there?" asked Trip, startling Skye back to reality. Blinking, she realized they were driving onto the landing strip of the airport. Apparently, she'd zoned out reading the file and for a good amount of time. "Skye?"

"Yeah," confirmed Skye, rubbing her eyes a little and trying to bring her focus back off the file. "The name of the person who put Ward up for adoption is here, so that's a start."

"What was the name?" asked Trip curiously as he navigated the car towards the hanger they'd tucked the plane into.

"Seamus D. S. Dith," replied Skye, shaking her head a bit as she closed the files and shoved them into her bag. She'd do more research on the names later; her mind was already running through everything she needed to look into.

"Weird name," remarked Trip as he opened a side hanger door a little ways with a remote and drove the car inside. "Sounds like it could be fake."

"I've heard weirder," stated Skye, climbing from the car once it was stopped, waiting as Trip turned off the engine and closed the side door behind them. It was apparently some spy thing- make sure you didn't have to open the big hanger door to bring stuff inside; the side door was big enough to bring a fork-lift through. "It's the signatures that I'm more interested in."

"Why?" asked Trip wearily. He climbed out after her, leaving the car keys in the ignition and heading towards Skye. It was an old SHIELD vehicle, with the GPS now deactivated, so it just stayed in the hanger until someone needed it. Skye counted herself lucky that Trip knew all these things; she sure as hell wouldn't have. "They're just the people involved in the deal, right?"

"Yeah," confirmed Skye, digging Ward's file out and flipping it around so Trip could look at it as they walked to the small private plane. He took it silently, eyes darting down where Skye tapped on the page. "Look who signed as the witness."

Trips brow furrowed as he spotted exactly what Skye was talking about, following her onto the plane. "Cyrus Ward?"

"Their dad," stated Skye as she snagged the file back and returned it to her bag as they climbed onto the plane. "But that isn't a real signature."

"How can you tell?" asked Trip curiously, ducking into the cockpit to get the plane ready. "You have no way of knowing what his signature looked like."

"No," confirmed Skye, following him into the cockpit and pulling the navigation system up, "but whoever did sign this for him wasn't a master forger either. The 'r' is the same between both Cyrus and Andrew Ward's names and there are hesitation marks in both their signatures, like the person signing it had to pause to think about how to write their names. Whoever signed for them probably practiced a few times, but didn't have the chance to learn the signatures as well as a pro."

"So what's that mean?" asked Trip, starting up the plane and using a remote open the hanger doors so they could taxi out. "And who signed it if it wasn't either Ward?"

"No clue," sighed Skye, strapping in as she entered the flight coordinates they needed. "Let's get back to the playground and find out."

* * *

_-15 Years Earlier-_

"Finished yet?"

Garrett glanced up at the nervous sounding man, smirking slightly in a way that was probably anything but reassuring. He just didn't care; it wasn't his job to reassure this little desk rat. "Relax Chuck, it's all good. I'll be done soon."

"It's Charles," sighed the man unhappily, creeping to the door and peeking out into the hall. "Please hurry up."

"You know, I'd be done faster if you'd leave me alone so I could read," informed Garrett, letting just a touch of irritation color his tone. He's paid this rat off so he could see this folder, not so he could listen to the man whine.

Still the folder hadn't contained anything of particular value. The name of the man who'd put Ward up for adoption was extremely suspicious, probably an anagram, but Garrett had no way of proving it. Just because you could spell one name from another didn't mean anything. The papers were well forged; there was no way to prove these people weren't real without running background checks and doing that would raise alarms among Hydra. He knew all too well how deeply rooted into SHIELD the other group was and there weren't many moves he could make using SHIELD resources that wouldn't catch someone's attention. Unfortunately, background checks were one of them. There were other ways of course, but those would cost him a pretty penny. And why would he do that, if he could just go to one of the sources?

Scribbling down the names, Garrett flipped the file closed and stood, pulling out several fifties from his pocket as he did. Approaching Chuck, he pulled the man back from the door and waved the cash in his face. "Make sure that file is so thoroughly buried, no one will find it. I want it left there, clear?"

"I can try, but-" Whatever Chuck is about to say, Garrett interrupted him with a glare, shoving the money into the man's chest.

"Just do it," growled Garrett before he opened the door to the record room and walked out as if he belonged there. The hall was deserted and no one bothered to try and stop him as he exited the building through the back. Child Welfare Services, what a joke. They couldn't keep a child safe if they waned to; all they do is move them around like pawns and pretend it somehow helped. Fortunately for Ward, Garrett was there to protect him from a system that did more harm than good. He'd make sure the kid grew up right.

Not even bothering to glance back at the Child Welfare office as he exited the alley, Garrett picked up the public phone across the street and dialed the number for information. It took several minutes of ringing (and nearly a dollar in fees) before Garrett reached an actual person. Putting on his friendliest voice, he withdrew the paper from earlier. "Hi, I need an address please. The name is Ward, Andrew. I'm pretty sure he lives somewhere here in town." He paused for a moment, listening as the woman rambled. Of course he played along that he was listening, nodding and humming as he pretended to listen to the hold tone.

"Yes, I'm still here," assured Garrett as rambling-woman came back on the line. "U-huh, yes, I have a pen and paper." He fished both from his pocket, clicking open the pen. "2334 Waterfront Drive, Kingston. Got it. Thank you very much, Miss." He hung up before she could begin rambling again, stepping out of the phone booth and whistling slightly as he headed for his rental car. It was time to pay Ward's 'family' a visit and get some answers.


	6. Chapter 6

_-15 Years Later-_

It was later than Skye had been hoping when she and Trip got back to the Playground, but she didn't bother to head to bed either. Trip must have caught on to her plans, because he called out that he'd grab her a sandwich as she half bolted off the plane. She had to start running this information now, as much as she'd like to wait. Ward had already been pulled out of his cell twice on her watch; she needed to try to find something to make sense of this and convince Coulson to help her get him out as soon as possible. The longer they waited, the greater the chance whoever was taking him away would get what they wanted from him.

Entering her sanctuary, she reached for the light switch, mentally beginning to run through everything she needed to do before bed. It was a long list, too.

"Where have you been."

Skye nearly jumped out of her skin, her hand bumping the light switch entirely by accident. Light flooded the room, illuminating the one and only Melinda May. Shit, May knew she'd been missing. Who knew what, if anything, she'd told Coulson.

The rather frightening pilot cleared her throat impatiently, catching Skye further off guard and nearly sending her airborne again. She really needed to get that under control, but first, she needed to come up with an excuse- fast. "We were running an errand. I needed some information from a government agency and we can't exactly get that data through legal means, you know?"

"If you needed information, you should have told us," remarked May, stepping toward Skye. "We could have arranged something. You and Trip going off the grid like you did today isn't safe. We need to know where everyone is at all times right now."

"Right," stated Skye, relaxing a bit once she was sure May bought her story. "I'll tell you guys next time."

Cutting across the room, Skye ignored the former pilot as she headed for the main computer station and began to boot it up. She was really tired and had a lot to set up tonight. Thank god for algorithms. That didn't mean it wouldn't take time to set everything to run, though. She had more files at this point than any other major database- there wasn't much point in running an external search until she'd run an internal one.

"Skye." Again, May's voice caught her attention, drawing her eyes back towards the pilot. "I'm serious. We're very short staffed right now and the last thing we need is to lose valuable members of this team on some irrelevant errand."

It took a lot of effort on Skye's part not to respond. May hadn't seen what Skye had and she didn't know what Skye had gone after or even where she'd gone. As far as May was concerned, it probably was a useless errand. But Skye couldn't bring herself to feel that way. She hated Ward in some ways, that was undeniable. But even murderers didn't deserve to be tortured in unknown ways and they certainly didn't deserve to be dragged out of their cell in the middle of the night. She might be running on the authoritarian side now, but that didn't mean she would blindly follow orders or accept inhumane or questionable treatment of anyone. Even Garrett wouldn't deserve something like that- and he'd ordered her shot.

….okay, maybe Garrett did deserve that, but Ward didn't. Garrett was truly psychotic, but whatever was going on with Ward might actually come back to bite _them_ in the ass. His history certainly was suggesting something weird was going on and Skye didn't really want to find out it was bad until it was too late for them to do something about it.

"Skye." Irritation was beginning to leak into May's voice, belying her apparent calm. Right, she probably wanted an acknowledgment Skye had actually heard what she'd just said.

"Got it, May," stated Skye, giving the older agent her best 'I'm taking this serious' face. "No more unauthorized trips off base."

May still didn't sound happy as she left (it was the walk), but she left all the same. It gave Skye a moment to breathe. Not that she didn't completely believe the frightening ex-pilot wouldn't be back (possibly with Coulson in tow); she fully expected another visit. Which meant she needed to get her search queries going and hidden.

Good thing she knew computers in a way no one else on base could even imagine.

She even had a few programs she'd built in her Rising Tide days she could utilize, along with a few back doors that were still open. Hacking might not be her theoretical job anymore, but she liked to keep her resources up and active all the same. Even if that meant breaking more than a few rules.

Pulling up one of her old search query programs she'd installed into the S.H.I.E.L.D system ages ago, Skye entered all of the names in Ward's file except one. The person who put him up for adoption would need special attention. Yes, it was entirely possible Seamus D. S. Dith was a real name, but Skye was also pretty good at spotting fake...anythings. Especially when it was a badly faked something. Like a name.

"Alright," muttered Skye as the queries took and began running. "Where the hell did someone get a name like this?"

For a long moment, she just stared at the name on the page and tried to think. It was a pretty random name, so the letters were probably important. A code maybe? Or an anagram? Usually people didn't anagram names into other names, but someone in a hurry might. Or someone who was really, really uncreative. Based on the other names on the paper, Skye would be willing to bet both were true. And if it was a code or anagram, she probably couldn't crack it by hand, especially if she didn't know what she was looking for.

_Could just search all possibilities through S.H.I.E.L.D, _thought Skye, her fingers already dancing over the keyboard in front of her. _It's not like S.H.I.E.L.D didn't have their noses in everything. Hell, there's files on people S.H.I.E.L.D's only ever monitored in their files. If this guy did anything illegal, he'll pop._

Pulling up an anagram generator she'd built for fun (and passing messages with other Rising Tide members), Skye scrolled through the program's code for a moment, changing things here and there before saving and recompiling the program. It would take a bit to finish, but that was fine. She had a code-breaking program to start anyway.

Ten minutes later, she had five queries running and a stack of results already waiting for her examination. Sleeping crossed Skye's mind for about five seconds before she clicked open the first file. She could sleep while she was waiting for the rest of the results. There was stuff to look at now.

Clicking open the S.H.I.E.L.D file concerning Cyrus Ward, Skye nearly balked as she realized the file was locked. Like, _locked_. She couldn't even find an access level needed to get in, though it was probably higher than anything she had. It almost made her laugh a little. Obviously, someone didn't want just anyone reading this file- which meant she wanted to read it more than ever.

Besides, she'd hacked S.H.I.E.L.D before and that was without outside access. Getting into a locked file from inside the system? That should be piece of cake. All she needed was a log-in high enough to have access. Once she had a log-in, she could run a password cracker. She just needed to trick the system into thinking she'd given it the right password.

_Coulson and May are the only two people who I know who'd have high enough clearance and are still with S.H.I.E.L.D_, thought Skye, her fingers slowly beginning to hit various keys. Finding out their log-in's wouldn't be hard, either. There was a system log of all log-ins used to access data. Most of those logs were her own, but she knew May and Coulson accessed them at different times. All she had to do was access the log. Hell, she could probably decrypt and pull their passwords from the system; it wasn't exactly hard and she had access to all access information in the mainframe. Except she needed to access it without anyone else being able to trace it back to her. That would be the tricky part.

Skye nearly laughed a second after the thought crossed her mind. She was so used to doing these things illegally, she was assuming she would be going against people like herself. Which, well, she wouldn't be.

Pulling up the log, Skye extracted both Coulson's and May's log-ins. They should be of equal level, but Skye had learned years ago that it was impossible to actually guess things like access levels when it came to clandestine (or formerly clandestine) government agencies. Not after she'd swiped an access code off a high level agent once only to discover the janitor had better access. Even with her experience though, Coulson was still a better bet.

Accessing the table containing the encrypted passwords, she pulled the values for Coulson's account as well as May's before turning to how to decrypt the information. The system was going to look for the hashed and salted value, but the problem was that she needed to back-build the passwords in order to ensure the system read the passwords right. Otherwise, the computer would rehash and salt the password. Of course, there wasn't any guarantee the file wouldn't have a separate password on it different from the rest of the system or that either password would work. Still, it wouldn't make sense to have a information file individually password locked

"Guess I could just run it through the generator backwards," muttered Skye, furrowing her brow. Then another thought crossed her mind. It was Coulson. She'd be willing to bet she could probably guess the man's password.

Pulling up the file again, she entered Coulson's username ( , how creative) and the first password combination she could guess. 'Captainamerica'. S.H.I.E.L.D should have better password restrictions than that, but she knew there was an equally good chance they didn't. If fast access was necessary, as it might well be, complex passwords weren't a friend.

The file beeped angrily at her, flashing a message she wasn't expecting across the screen: 'Invalid Access Level'.

_Invalid access, great,_ though Skye unhappily, leaning back in her seat. It wasn't 'incorrect password', it was 'invalid access level'. _So, Coulson doesn't have access. So that's higher than level 8? I thought we'd recoded Coulson's access for Alpha level clearance. Must have forgotten. That's kinda a tricky thing to do, anyway. It's not like Fury gave us the passcodes. Though after Romanoff's stunt, I'm kinda surprised there's any locked files left._

Shoving her hair back, Skye switched back to the password table. It would be easy enough to use a program to decrypt May's passcode; she could build a program that could do exactly that using the hasher and salter encryption codes. It would just take time she didn't want to give up just to get a password for a file that might not actually be in any manner, shape, or form, useful. A password that might not even work.

"Wait, what if I plug the encrypted password directly into the log? If I go around the salter and hasher, it should let me input the password as-is directly into the value table rather than undoing all of it." Her fingers were moving before her mind really caught up with what she was doing and part of her really, really hoped this would work. She just wanted the file to open already so she could find out what the hell was up with Ward's family.

A second later, she got her wish.

_Huh._ Apparently May had higher clearance than Coulson. She'd have to remember that, just in case she had other files to break into. It wasn't something she was planning on having to do, but it happened all the same.

Opening the file, Skye felt the breath leave her lungs as several documents began to flash up. Really, really worrying documents. The kind that she didn't think actually existed outside of the movies. The words 'human experimentation' appeared multiple times along with the phrases 'biological agents' and 'weapons of mass destruction'. _What the hell was Ward's family into?_

Sealing herself for what was likely to be a very disturbing few hours, Skye settled into her chair and prepared to read a file that looked like the beginning of a horror movie.

* * *

Hours later, Skye stumbled into the kitchen and half collapsed against the counter. This whole matter was giving her a headache. A major one. The lack of sleep probably wasn't helping either, come to think of it. After what she'd read last night, sleep hadn't exactly been forthcoming.

Without much thought, she dumped her tablet beside her seat and dropped her head against the cool metal top.

"Didn't find what you wanted?" asked Trip, the sound of a wooden spoon clicking against ceramic aggravating her headache slightly. The fact that he was making cookies at 3 am would have been shocking- if he didn't do it so often. Apparently, not eating junk didn't mean not making it and somehow making cookies was cathartic. Especially when everyone was supposed to be sleeping. She wouldn't complain tonight though- the company was welcome.

"No, I found more questions," admitted Skye unhappily. Beside her, her tablet beeped. Well, that either meant it had found something or it was low on batteries. She hoped it was the former; she could used some good news.

"Like what?" asked Trip. A click told her Trip had set something in front of her and the scent said it involved chocolate. Seriously, how did he do that?

She didn't lift her head from the counter as her hand blindly found the warm cup, fingers wrapping around the ceramic like it was some kind of lifeline. "Like the fact that his supposed grandfather was actually some kind of really disturbed mad scientist who's file was so buried I had to hijack May's log-in to access the file." Taking a deep breath, she lifted her head to look at her tablet. "By the way, did you know May was level 9? 'Cause I always assumed she was level 8 like Coulson."

Her eyes scanned the tablet results as she rambled aimlessly, glancing over the names her modified anagram generator had managed to catch. A few of the names made her wonder about the naming sense of the kid's parents (seriously, who named their kid 'Sadd'?). All in all, ten of the generated names had popped back results, but half of those were former S.H.I.E.L.D agents and the other half were offenders with rap sheets that made Skye wonder why anyone actually tried to imprison them. Seriously, one had pulled an iron door off a wall and _thrown _it at the agents chasing him.

"I'm guessing by the look on your face that none of your results are promising," remarked Trip.

"Most of these guys look like they're more likely to throw a baby in a river than go through this whole, elaborate adoption hoax," admitted Skye, her hope for answers diminishing with each passing paragraph, eyes never leaving the tablet. There had to be something there.

Trip made a small sound in his throat, the sound of him transferring the cookies echoing in the room. "You knew this was a long shot to begin with, Skye. I mean, who knows what Garrett doctored in his files."

"Yeah, I know," confirmed Skye as she clicked the last name that had popped and began to skim. "I was just hoping..." Her voice trailed off as several key words began popping out in the file; words like 'mad scientist' and 'black market'. Almost immediately, her entire focus returned to the article as she started to actually read it in earnest. She couldn't believe it- she might be holding the key to getting her questions answered. Or at least some of them. When a name popped out at her a second later, she knew she'd found what they needed.

"You look like you just struck the jackpot," remarked Trip. She could hear him walking to the oven, probably with the cookies in hand.

"Yeah, I think I did." She hit a few more buttons on her tablet, bringing up another page of information. She'd found something, finally. Closing her eyes in relief (and because they were starting to sting), she blindly flipped the tablet around and slid it towards the other side of the counter so Trip could see it when he walked back over. She'd found something that could offer them answers; it was a start.

Her hands curled around the ceramic of her cup in relief, absorbing the warmth. Her eyes remained shut as she took a slow sip of the liquid (because Trip's hot cocoa was something to be savored) and just let it relax her body a little. She waited a heartbeat before speaking again, keeping her eyes closed in an attempt to cling to her momentary peace. "See anyone familiar on that list?"

"Cyrus Ward," stated Trip, the unhappy huff in his voice indicating he was seeing the same pattern she was. "It says he was a known associate of Thaddeus Sims. So who's Sims?"

"Sims is one of the names that came up when I ran an algorithm program to find any anagrams of that name from Ward's adoption file," explained Skye, reaching up to rub her eyes as her mind began to run through this new information. Really though, she needed to explain it out loud and Trip had been indulgent so far. Maybe he'd see something she didn't. "According to S.H.I.E.L.D's records, Sims was a black market biochemist specializing in genetics. Definitely falls in the 'mad scientist' category."

"And apparently so did this Cyrus Ward," remarked Trip. "Think that's how Ward ended up in his hands?"

"Maybe," sighed Skye, tilting her head back and opening her eyes to stare up at the ceiling. It was less distracting than other things in the room. Besides, she was going to fall asleep if she kept her eyes closed. "I mean, okay, if I had a kid I wanted kept safe or not found, I'd either give them to a friend's family or give them to someone I could blackmail into keeping the kid if I didn't have someone I could pass them off to."

"So you think the Wards were a 'friend' situation?" asked Trip. She could hear it when he set down the tablet, pushing it a little towards her.

Again, Skye let out a sigh. It was hard to figure out things like social relationships just based on files and she knew she was still missing some pretty big pieces. But the circumstantial evidence supporting her next few sentences was pretty substantial all the same. "I think Andrew Ward was a 'I can blackmail or threaten him' situation."

"But Cyrus was a known associate," pointed out Trip. "So why would he blackmail or threaten the guy's kids?"

"Cyrus was a known associate and from what it looks like, so was Arthur," confirmed Skye with a sigh, closing her eyes again and pinching the bridge of her nose. How to explain the next part; she hadn't really brought up the abuse she'd found in Ward's file (or rather what she hadn't found in his file that sent up a slew of red flags) and she wasn't sure she wanted to. But it might be unavoidable all the same. "But I can't find anything that indicates Andrew was in any way involved with Cyrus. That plus...other things make it pretty clear Andrew probably wanted nothing to do with Ward to begin with."

"Other things," repeated Trip. She could hear the tension in his tone; it indicated he knew what she was getting at already without her having to offer up more details. "Like abuse."

"Like abuse," confirmed Skye unhappily. "There were some medical records and school files that indicated not everything was good at home."

"Why the hell did the guy keep him then?" asked Trip, confusion replacing the tension in his voice. "If he didn't want the kid..."

"Which is my point," countered Skye, blinking her eyes open again. "You'd only keep a kid you don't want if you don't have another option and a family like Ward's had other options."

"But why was Ward so special?" wondered Trip. "Why go through all this hassle to hide Ward?"

"I have no clue," admitted Skye as her mind raced through the information in her head. Ward was an abused kid who'd been left in the care of a family who didn't want him. The man who'd put Ward up for adoption (or at least the most likely suspect) was a friend of Ward's 'grandfather', Cyrus, and appeared to be involved in some kind of biochemistry that Skye couldn't hope to understand in a million years.

"Why not ask him?"

Skye nearly fell out of her chair as a third voice joined their conversation, her head snapping up like a spring-loaded contraption. Fitz stared back at her from behind the counter, standing beside Trip.

"Fitz?!" Skye nearly shouted, trying to right herself and regain her mental equilibrium all in one go. It was a lot harder than it should have been. "How long have you been there?"

Shit. Had he been there the whole time? Skye hadn't noticed him when she came in, but Trip hadn't moved from where he was standing when she entered. Was it possible she'd heard Fitz moving around and not Trip? Shit.

"I was here before you," came back Fitz, his voice shaky. His issues with words proved a difficult barrier for him to overcome sometimes, but other times he was surprisingly concise. When Ward came up though, he tended to be less of all of the above and more twitchy, paranoid. That he was still mad at Ward was a given- Skye had to keep what she was doing away from him. "Why are you looking into this anyway? The man, he- he-, uh-" Fitz let out a frustrated noise, clearly trying to find words that wouldn't come to him.

"Betrayed us?" supplied Trip, raising both eyebrows at the scientist.

"Yes, that," confirmed Fitz, his voice firm as if he'd said the words himself. "He doesn't deserve this- this-"

"Attention?" tried Trip, tilting his head a little bit as he leaned forward to rest his forearms on the counter. "Concern?"

"Yes," repeated Fitz, folding his arms firmly in front of him.

"That's what I said," stated Trip, turning an 'I told you so' look onto Skye.

Skye groaned, dropping her head to the counter. How was she supposed to explain to Fitz, a man who'd been so severely hurt by Ward, that she was afraid someone was experimenting on him for reasons they couldn't understand? It wasn't like she understood what was going on any better than anyone else did. But she didn't like it all the same and the implications that were emerging from her research were bad with a capitol B. "It's hard to explain Fitz-"

"Skye thinks someone is experimenting on Ward in prison, Fitz," explained Trip, cutting her off efficiently and condensing everything she'd managed to drag up into a single sentence. "Apparently, Skye saw a bunch of guards dragging Ward out of his cell in the middle of the night and drugging him."

"It was more than that," stated Skye firmly, lifting her head. She wasn't going to let Trip white-wash this. It wasn't a laughing matter, especially when Hydra was already so far ahead of them and this had their name written all over it. "It didn't just happen once. It's happened at least twice that I've actually seen, probably more based on the camera logs. They're turning off the cameras, removing him from his cell, and smuggling him into an unmonitored part of the prison that doesn't appear on any blueprints or records. That's not normal."

Trip turned to her, brow furrowed sharply. Any previous disbelief or disapproval had disappeared. It made Skye wonder what she'd said to catch his attention so thoroughly. "Wait, what do you mean they're taking him into an unmonitored part of the prison that isn't on any blueprints. You said they were just taking him out of his cell when he was drugged."

Skye blinked. Right, she hadn't brought that part up yet because she didn't want to alarm Trip into telling Coulson. Shit, she'd forgotten that part. "Um, yeah, that's kinda why I think it might be Hydra's doing. And why I'm about 80% sure they're experimenting on him. There's no cameras where they're taking him and the elevator logs say the floor doesn't exist. So, um, yeah..."

"Skye, that's serious," stated Trip, worry furrowing his brow as he leaned forward the counter. There was a spark of anger in his eyes too- like he was blaming Skye for withholding information. "That's really serious. We could be looking at a government supported Hydra base. Didn't you think that could be important?"

"Yeah, I did," stated Skye, irritation rising in her tone. Seriously, he was going to spin this around on her? She'd withheld the information because she didn't think anyone would have _listened _until she had something else to support her theory. None of them wanted to talk about Ward, herself included. "That's why I'm trying to figure out what's going on. I've done everything I can to get access to whatever's down there, but they're operating on a separate network and computer system from the rest of the prison, so I can't get in. Which is why I'm worried about what they might be doing. Especially since we now know that, hey, Ward was put up for adoption in secret by a mad scientist specializing in genetic experimentation."

"Ex- ex-" started Fitz, sputtering through the word as he looked down in concern at the tablet that had somehow ended up in his hands. Seriously, when had he grabbed her tablet? She should really pay more attention to that stuff.

"Experimentation," offered Trip, his own eyes turning to the engineer. Worry returned to the specialist's face as he took in Fitz's expression. "What're you seeing Fitz?"

"Children," stated Fitz, tapping something on the monitor. "He ex-experimented on children."

Skye felt the blood rush from her face. Ward had been put up for adoption by a man who experimented on children. Ward had been a child at the time, an infant. Ward might have been experimented on. What if he was so messed up because he was experimented on and not because he was a psychopath?

"So wait, let me get this straight," stated Trip, drawing Skye's attention to the other agent. He looked just as alarmed as Skye felt, which couldn't be good at all. It probably meant he was drawing the same conclusions. "Ward was put up for adoption by some guy who's known to experiment on kids."

Fitz started to nod, freezing partway through the action when Skye guessed the actual ramifications of what they'd just learned sank in. "Ward might be an experiment."

"He might be some mad science dude's experiment," confirmed Skye, bolting up from her chair to step around behind Fitz. "Does it say how old?"

"Why would that matter?" asked Trip, the furrow in his brow audible in his voice.

"Because Ward was an infant and, I don't know, maybe he has a preference and Ward wasn't his type?" suggested Skye, glancing up at Trip.

"Maybe Ward is his," suggested Fitz, like he was trying to offer a less horrifying alternative. Unfortunately, Skye hadn't seen anything in the file to support that argument.

"I didn't see anything that indicates he ever had kids or, you know, a woman," stated Skye simply, eyes skimming the section Fitz was reading. The call number of a second file popped up in the paragraph, drawing Skye's attention. The file wasn't S.H.I.E.L.D, but she knew who it belonged to all the same. "There's an FBI file."

"A what?" asked Fitz as Skye neatly plucked the tablet from his hands. He actually looked a bit flushed as she did, though he relinquished the tablet without a fight. "How do you know?"

"Because there's a file reference in S.H.I.E.L.D's text," explained Skye, tapping on the file name to highlight and copy it. She used her tablet to open the backdoor she maintained in the FBI database, immediately running a search for the file. There wouldn't be a lot of time to actually read the file on the system though; she was going to have to download it onto the computer back in the main server room.

"Skye, are you hacking the FBI?" asked Trip, concern flooding his voice. "Girl, if Coulson finds out you hacked into another government database without asking first-"

"It's not really hacking when you have a backdoor and gave yourself a log-in and password," corrected Skye, downloading the file as soon as it came up. As soon as she had the file, she'd head down to read it. Pulling an FBI file onto her tablet would leave too many footprints she didn't want to have to erase. On her computer in the security center, she had other options.

"Why do you have-" started Trip, but Skye cut him off with a wave.

"I'm a hacker Trip, first and foremost," reminded Skye simply, closing the connection just as the file finished downloading. "I have all sorts of tricks up my sleeve you don't even want to know about."

"Not arguing that," muttered Trip, shaking his head a bit before pointing at the tablet. "So what's the file say?"

"I don't know," stated Skye with a shrug, heading around the island to get her mug of cocoa. "I'm gonna open it in security though. All my decryptors and other toys are down there and this file probably isn't unlocked."

"Alright," dismissed Trip with a sigh, waving his hand a bit. "Fitz and I are going to finish our cookies. We'll bring you some."

"Thanks," thanked Skye, pausing just before the door. Glancing out into the hallway to confirm it was clear, the hacker looked back at her two teammates curiously. "Do you want to know what I find?"

"Yes," stated Fitz, breaking in before Trip could even begin to respond. Trip in turn gave the scientist a curious look, to which Fitz just blinked back. "Skye's right. If Ward is some kind of science ex-exp-"

"Experiment," supplied Trip again, nodding reassuringly.

"_Experiment_," repeated Fitz, emphasizing the word like it would help him remember it, "then who knows what was done to him. And if Hydra has him..."

"It could be really bad for all of us," agreed Trip with a sigh, glancing back at Skye. "He's right, let us know what you find. We can all go to Coulson afterwords and discuss how we're gonna get him out."

"Right," agreed Skye, nodding once and turning to the door so they couldn't see her wince. Talking with Coulson about this was going to suck and she knew it. But maybe if they found enough evidence and the others were behind her, it wouldn't be so bad.

Heading to the security center again, Skye tried not to image what she might find waiting for her there. And silently prayed that, whatever it was, they'd at least learn Ward wasn't a science experiment. She wasn't sure she'd be able to hate him anymore (even with Fitz's haunting stutter), if he was.

* * *

_-15 Years Earlier-_

The Ward's house was nicer than Garrett had expected. Even in the shadows of the evening, it was pretty clear the family was anything but pressed for money. Fire damage still scarred the outer wall of the building where Grant had tried to burn down the house. Several windows were boarded up and the scorching against the white slates was visible even in the impending darkness. The fact the family was still staying in their house was surprising, but Garrett was grateful.

The house meant he could control them better; it would be easier to _talk_ with them without worrying someone might get the wrong idea and do something inconvenient like call the police.

Strolling up to the house, Garrett slipped around the side, following the sound of voices inside. They weren't exactly being quiet; then again, it sounded like someone might be drunk. Based on the state he'd found Grant in, an alcoholic family member seemed likely. Something was wrong with that family at the very least.

A glass crashed inside, followed by a shout. It reaffirmed Garrett's drunk theory, especially when he heard slurred shouting coming from inside. This would either work in his favor or opposition. Drunk men could be easier to convince to share information, but it could make them belligerent, stupid, and unaware of the danger they're in. It depended on how far gone the drunk individual was. Based on the noise inside, whoever was drunk was right at the point Garrett needed. Hopefully, it was the father, Andrew, who was drunk.

Jogging up to the back door, Garret pulled out one of S.H.I.E.L.D's many lock-breaking tools (this was some new thing that was supposed to burn out the lock and force it to open) which he didn't hesitate to force into the keyhole. It sizzled slightly, a side effect which Garrett noted (he'd mention it to R&D), before the sound of the lock popping out cut over the noise of melting metal. Well, at least it worked. Sometimes the stuff R&D cooked up didn't exactly function like it was supposed to.

Pressing open the door, Garrett found himself stepping into a kitchen. It was almost sickeningly perfect, from the china on display along the wall to the neat flowers arranged in a vase on the table. The whole looked like it had been ordered from a catalog.

A whimper drew Garrett's attention from near by, barely audible above what was rapidly becoming louder and louder arguing coming from deeper in the house. It wasn't an animal whimper, which was the first thought that had broken through Garrett's head. No, this one was markedly human and sounded young. Scared. Like a child.

Without really thinking about it, Garrett quietly walked over to the table and knelt down, pushing aside the table cloth to peer beneath. A little boy peered back, wrapped in the arms of what looked like an older girl. She was probably a little younger than Grant if not his same age, honestly, but how much was hard to say. The way she was curling her arms around the little boy spoke volumes about the situation at hand though. Without thinking about it, Garrett offered them both a soft smile and motioned towards the back door with his head.

"My car's near by, I'll drive you somewhere safe," offered Garrett quietly, meeting the older girl's eyes. "I'm a friend of Grant's. Here." He fished his keys from his pocket and offered them to the girl. She glanced at them fearfully for a moment before reaching for the keys with a shaky hand. As soon as her fingers had curled around them, Garrett released the ring. "Go. I'll be out shortly."

The little boy looked gratefully up at Garrett as the girl hurried him out from under the table without question. Garrett was careful to slide aside and keep himself between the door into the rest of the house and the kid's escape route. The last thing these kids needed was to witness the...discussion he was about to have with their father. They didn't deserve to watch their dad beat the crap out of whoever he was targeting either.

As soon as they were out the door, Garrett turned back into the house and started the calmly follow the sound of shouting. A body hit the wall further down the hallway, prompting Garrett to pick up his pace a little. He couldn't tell if it was someone stumbling or someone being thrown, but either way it was bad. If Andrew knocked himself out (or was knocked out), he wouldn't have anyone he could talk to.

The noise led him down a short hall to the arched opening of a room just off the front entry. If he had to guess, it was a living room. Mentally, he made a note of where the front door was for control purposes and that it was locked before focusing on the room the chaos was emitting from.

Three people were standing in various corners of the room: a younger man with dark brown hair and hard, cold eyes that matched, a woman with hair as dark as the younger man's standing behind him, and an older man leaning half-propped against a wall. Both the woman and younger man stood, defiantly, in the middle of the room. The older man was glaring at them both, as he worked to find his feet, scowling at them both like they were some bane in his life.

"Damn assholes," growled the older man, pushing away from the wall with a bit of a stumble. "'s all your fault. If you hadn't pushed him so damn hard we wouldn' be worrying about this."

"Well if you'd had him put into a better prison, maybe he wouldn't have escaped," snarled the younger man. "He tried to kill me and if he comes back for all of us, then it'll be on you."

Well, wasn't this a fun family dispute. Based on the way the younger kids had taken cover, it wasn't the first either. These types of disputes always took forever to end, too. That was time Garrett just didn't have. No one in the room was a threat to him and if he targeted the woman, he should be able to control both me. Not that he was opposed to using a bit of force if necessary.

Satisfied he had a way of controlling the room, Garrett shoved his hands into his pockets in the most relaxed pose he could take and stepped into the room.

Almost immediately, the room fell silent as three heads turned towards him. The younger man almost immediately backed towards the woman, as Garrett had predicted he would, but the older man actually attempted to straighten up to his full height and look demanding. It would have been more intimidating if he weren't swaying slightly.

"Who the hell are you?" demanded the older man with a scowl, attempting to glare Garrett down. Suffice to say, it wasn't working.

"Me?" asked Garrett curiously, offering the man a borderline threatening grin. "I'm a friend of your son. Grant says 'fuck you', by the way."

The way every person in the room seemed to simultaneously pale was oddly satisfying. They really were afraid of their 'son', a fact Garrett would need to explore later. It could just be the fresh memory of the fire still in their minds, but he doubted that. It seemed more likely Grant had done something to actively make himself a force they feared. Or the oldest son had convinced the family Grant was some kind of monster- he wasn't about to rule that one out either. He'd already determined the oldest boy was a manipulative SOB, largely based on things Grant had (and hadn't) said. It didn't take a genius to figure it out.

"You broke Grant out of prison," stated the younger man, the pale shocked look vanishing in an instant. Red rose to his face as his eyes narrowed in anger and barely reigned frustration. Not that Garrett could really blame the kid; the oldest Ward brother had to be on high alert after the fighting he'd heard earlier.

"Yes, I did," stated Garrett simply, smirking slightly at the younger man. "And I'm guessing you're Maynard."

"Anything Grant said is a lie," growled Maynard, stepping just a little closer. "He'd say anything to get someone's attention."

"I'll keep that in mind," assured Garrett, turning his attention on the older man. "But right now? I'm more interested in hearing where Grant came from."

The older man scowled a bit, trying to square his shoulders a little to make himself appear larger. "What are you insinuating?"

"Has Grant been claiming he's adopted?" demanded Maynard. "Those are lies. He's just looking for attention."

"Probably because no one ever wanted to listen to him," remarked Garrett, eyes narrowing in Maynard's direction momentarily. "I'm not speaking to you, boy. I'm here to talk to your father."

"Well my father isn't exactly in a position to talk," growled Maynard, fists falling to his side. "Besides, I know everything there is to know about Grant. He-" Maynard gestured vaguely in his father's direction, "doesn't know anything about him."

"Except where he came from," countered Garrett as he stepped right up to Maynard. The kid was getting on his nerves and clearly this family needed something to prove he wasn't kidding around. Without warning, Garrett grabbed Maynard's outstretched arm and twisted it sharply, spinning the boy around and forcing his arm behind his back. There were several pops as a few of Maynard's bones popped out of place. The scream Maynard released was satisfying in more ways than Garrett could count. "Now, why don't you go stand quietly in the corner like a good boy and let me talk with your father. Otherwise, next time, I'll break bones."

Releasing Maynard's wrist and shoving the man away, Garrett turned his full attention back onto the older Ward. All color had again left the man's face, reducing him to a pale, shaking shadow. Which was exactly where Garrett wanted him.

"Now, Andrew, let's talk," stated Garrett, again offering the man a grin. This time though, it wasn't so friendly. It may have been why Andrew's shoulders noticeably stooped into a passive position. Or it might have been the way Garrett had just dislocated his son's entire arm. Either way, he was clearly done attempting to be brave. "Who did you get Grant from."

For half a second, Andrew actually looked like he was considering not saying a word. A glance at something behind Garrett though had Andrew talking. "I didn't know the man personally. He said his name was Dr. Something Sims. He basically shoved Grant into my arms and said the kid was now mine legally. When I suggested I might give Grant up to the system, Sims threatened me. He said one of his associates would come to collect Grant later and if I tried to give Grant up, I'd regret it. The men my father worked with were crazy. Who knows what they might do?"

"And no one ever showed up to get him," asked Garrett, though it was really more of a statement. There wasn't much point in asking really; he pretty much knew the answer. Obviously no one had come for Grant, otherwise Garrett wouldn't have the kid now.

"My brother was the only other person who showed up, and I refused to answer the door," stated Andrew, eyes again moving to something behind Garrett. He could hear someone moving around and it wasn't hard to guess what was going on. Obviously, Andrew's wife had more balls than Garrett had given her credit.

"If you ever want to see your two youngest kids again, I'd recommend not doing whatever you're trying to do," remarked Garrett, never even bothering to turn around. "I found 'em cowering under the kitchen table. They were more than happy to get out of here. If you even attempt to take me down, I will stick them somewhere that you'll never find. Play nice, and I'll make sure to call and tell you where I drop them off. That way you can at least attempt to fight the state for custody."

The shuffling behind him abruptly stopped, a whimper the only other noise that cut through the room for a moment before he heard someone drop to the ground. It didn't sound like a faint though and Andrew wasn't rushing around, so it was probably his wife dropping to her knees.

"Please don't hurt my children." Her voice was a lot softer than he'd expected, but it probably shouldn't be a surprise. Anyone married to a man like Andrew probably wasn't loudly outspoken. It made Garrett sick.

"Lady, the last thing I'm going to do is hurt your kids," stated Garrett firmly, turning slightly to look back at Andrew's wife. As Garrett had suspected, she was kneeling on the ground with a heavy candlestick still clutched in her hands. The defeated look on her face though spoke volumes. She wasn't a threat anymore. "Those kids are scarred enough because of you idiots. But I won't bother telling you where I take them tonight unless your husband finishes answering my questions."

It took a moment, but the woman finally nodded, releasing the candlestick from her grasp and rolling it towards Garrett. Maynard was curled on the ground in a pained ball and she shuffled back over to him almost immediately. Pathetic.

Turning back to Andrew, Garrett cocked an eyebrow at the man curiously. "Your brother showed up."

"Yes," confirmed Andrew shakily, defeated eyes meeting Garrett's own hardened gaze. "He disappeared when we were kids- probably taken away by one of our father's weird science friends. Arthur always was good at science."

Watching the man for a moment, Garrett began to see a picture emerge. It was one that Andrew wasn't telling but that was obvious all the same. "You suspect Sims took your brother, Arthur, away when you were kids."

"It was exactly the kind of thing our father would have wanted for him," confirmed Andrew, eyes again falling behind Garrett. "Was that all? Will you release our kids now?"

"No," replied Garrett, ignoring the question about the kids for the moment. Those kids needed to be out of that house for the night. Garrett remembered all too well his own run-ins with his drunk father. He wasn't going to leave these kids to spend the night in a broken house. Their parents could fight for them if they wanted them back. Maybe it would straighten the family out. "Did Sims tell you anything else about Grant?"

Andrew was beginning to look somewhere between lost and defeated; it made Garrett a little sick to see a man acting so pathetic. "Look, all that crazy guy said was that Grant was too important to lose in the system and that my father owed him a very large blood debt, whatever the hell that means. He said taking care of Grant until someone came for him was the repayment."

Obviously, it was all Garrett was going to get out of Arther; the man was starting to repeat himself. Besides, he didn't really want to hang around anyway. He had all the information he needed regardless of everything else. He'd already confirmed what he needed to: Grant had a connection to Sims. But maybe more importantly than that, he now knew Grant was so important to Sims that the man had entrusted him to his former colleague's son and used a blood debt to ensure that Grant would be kept in one place. And the only reason he'd do that was if he wanted to monitor where Grant was at all times. Even if Grant wasn't the missing super-soldier experiment (which Garrett suspected he probably was), he was something important to Sims and that made him important to Garrett.

"Alright, here's what I'm going to do," stated Garrett calmly, taking a step backwards into the doorway so he could keep everyone else in the room in sight. "You," he pointed at Andrew, "are still drunk. So, I'm going to take your kids somewhere safe tonight. Once I've dropped them off, I'm going to call you to make sure you know where they are. You can pick a fight with the state over them if you really want them."

"But-" started Arthur's wife. However, a glare from Garrett had her falling silent in seconds.

"I'm not going to hurt your kids, so relax about that," repeated Garrett, his irritation at the fact he needed to repeat himself ever was a chore. "I'm just gonna take them somewhere safe. However, if you call the cops on me, I will not hesitate to hurt people. Got it?" All three heads nodded as Garrett took another step out and into the living room. "Good. I'll call you with a location when I get there." Tipping an imaginary cowboy hat. Garrett offered them a true grin. "Enjoy your evening."

And with that, he turned to the front door, unlocked it, and stepped into the cold Massachusetts night.


End file.
